Endocrine secretions of pancreatic islets are regulated by complex control mechanisms driven not only by blood-borne metabolites such as glucose, amino acids, and catecholamines, but also by local paracrine influences. The major pancreatic islet hormones, glucagon, insulin and somatostatin, interact with specific pancreatic cell types (A, B, and D cells, respectively) to modulate the secretory response. Although insulin secretion is predominantly controlled by blood glucose levels, somatostatin inhibits glucose-mediated insulin secretion.
The human hormone glucagon is a 29-amino acid hormone produced in pancreatic A-cells. The hormone belongs to a multi-gene family of structurally related peptides that include secretin, gastric inhibitory peptide, vasoactive intestinal peptide and glicentin. These peptides variously regulate carbohydrate metabolism, gastrointestinal motility and secretory processing. However, the principal recognized actions of pancreatic glucagon are to promote hepatic glycogenolysis and glyconeogenesis, resulting in an elevation of blood sugar levels. In this regard, the actions of glucagon are counter regulatory to those of insulin and may contribute to the hyperglycemia that accompanies Diabetes mellitus (Lund, P. K., et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 79:345-349 (1982)).
When glucagon binds to its receptor on insulin producing cells, cAMP production increases which in turn stimulates insulin expression (Korman, L. Y., et al., Diabetes, 34:717-722 (1985)). Moreover, high levels of insulin down-regulate glucagon synthesis by a feedback inhibition mechanism (Ganong, W. F., Review of Medical Physiology, Lange Publications, Los Altos, Calif., p. 273 (1979)). Thus, the expression of glucagon is carefully regulated by insulin, and ultimately by serum glucose levels.
Preproglucagon, the zymogen form of glucagon, is translated from a 360 base pair gene and is processed to form proglucagon (Lund, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79:345-349 (1982)). Patzelt, et al. (Nature, 282:260-266 (1979)) demonstrated that proglucagon is further processed into glucagon and a second peptide. Later experiments demonstrated that proglucagon is cleaved carboxyl to Lys-Arg or Arg-Arg residues (Lund, P. K., et al., Lopez L. C., et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 80:5485-5489 (1983), and Bell, G. I., et al., Nature 302:716-718 (1983)). Bell, G. I., et al., also discovered that proglucagon contained three discrete and highly homologous peptide regions which were designated glucagon, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), and glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2). Lopez, et al., demonstrated that GLP-1 was a 37 amino acid peptide and that GLP-2 was a 34 amino acid peptide. Analogous studies on the structure of rat preproglucagon revealed a similar pattern of proteolytic cleavage at Lys-Arg or Arg-Arg residues, resulting in the formation of glucagon, GLP-1, and GLP-2 (Heinrich, G., et al., Endocrinol., 115:2176-2181 (1984)). Finally, human, rat, bovine, and hamster sequences of GLP-1 have been found to be identical (Ghiglione, M., et al., Diabetologia, 27:599-600 (1984)).
The conclusion reached by Lopez, et al., regarding the size of GLP-1 was confirmed by studying the molecular forms of GLP-1 found in the human pancreas (Uttenthal, L. O., et al. J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metabol., 61:472-479 (1985)). Their research showed that GLP-1 and GLP-2 are present in the pancreas as 37 and 34 amino acid peptides respectively.
The similarity between GLP-1 and glucagon suggested to early investigators that GLP-1 might have biological activity. Although some investigators found that GLP-1 could induce rat brain cells to synthesize cAMP (Hoosein, N. M., et al., Febs Lett. 178:83-86 (1984)), other investigators failed to identify any physiological role for GLP-1 (Lopez, L. C., et al. supra). However, GLP-1 is now known to stimulate insulin secretion (insulinotropic action) causing glucose uptake by cells which decreases serum glucose levels (see, e.g., Mojsov, S., Int. J. Peptide Protein Research, 40:333-343 (1992)).
Numerous GLP-1 analogs demonstrating insulinotropic action are known in the art. These variants and analogs include, for example, GLP-1(7-36), Gln.sup.9 -GLP-1(7-37), D-Gln.sup.9 -GLP-1(7-37), acetyl-Lys.sup.9 -GLP-1(7-37), Thr.sup.16 -Lys.sup.18 -GLP-1(7-37), and Lys.sup.18 -GLP-1(7-37). Derivatives of GLP-1 include, for example, acid addition salts, carboxylate salts, lower alkyl esters, and amides (see, e.g., WO91/11457 (1991)). More importantly, it was demonstrated using GLP-1(8-37)OH that the histidine residue at position 7 is very important to insulinotropic activity of GLP-1 (Suzuki, S., et al. Diabetes Res.; Clinical Practice 5 (Supp. 1):S30 (1988).
In view of the above, it was most surprising when the present inventors discovered that administering N-terminal deletion mutants of GLP-1 to experimental animals caused an increase in serum glucose uptake in the absence of any insulinotropic activity. This discovery suggests that an entirely new mechanism for lowering elevated blood glucose levels may exist and directly lead to the present invention.
Accordingly, the primary object of this invention is to provide novel, C-terminal GLP-1 fragments having no insulinotropic action but which are nonetheless useful for treating diabetes and hyperglycemic conditions. Further objects of the present invention are pharmaceutical compositions that contain biologically-active GLP-1 fragments, as well as methods for using such compounds to treat diabetes.